Black Box @ Edinburgh International Film Festival

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Black Box is Edinburgh International Film Festival's regular experimental strand, curated by Kim Knowles. From abstract to narrative, celluloid to digital, Black Box celebrates the diversity of experimental film from around the world. Since 2013 the strand also includes an expanded film performance event Black Box Live.

Black Box Shorts 1: Commodification-Appropriation
27 June, 18:30h

The films in this programme subtly underline the way capitalism infiltrates and defines the environments we inhabit and the images we consume. From real estate to pornography, and from Coca-Cola to Miley Cyrus, the works showcased here present idiosyncratic critiques of commodity culture and social alienation. The images of capitalism are reclaimed and reworked to form alternative readings and understandings of contemporary consumer society.

- Property (Jeanne Liotta, USA, 2013, 4 mins)
- Songdo Prophecy (Emilija Skarnulyte, Norway, Lithuania, 2014, 11 mins)
- Catalogue (Dana Berman Duff, USA, 2014, 7 mins)
- The Infinity Scroll Pt II (Jared Porter Hutchinson, USA, 2014, 3 mins)
- The Shadow Of Your Smile (Alexi Dmitriev, Russia, 2014, 3 mins)
- sexy (Kurdwin Ayub, Austria, 2013, 3 mins)
- Death Songs And Car Bombs (Brendan & Jeremy Smyth, Indonesia, 2013, 6 mins)
- Coke (Dietmar Brehm, Austria, 2013, 4 mins)
- Under The Heat Lamp An Opening (Zachary Epcar, USA, 2014, 11 mins)
- Encounters With Your Inner Trotsky Child (Jim Finn, 2013, 21 mins)

Black Box Shorts 2: Film Is Chemistry
27 June, 20:40h

The eleven films featured here all contain elements of transformation - material, perceptual and conceptual - that highlight film as a physical substance with multiple possibilities. Featuring works from the burgeoning international artist-run film lab scene: Cherry Kino (Leeds), WORM (Rotterdam), Space Cell (Seoul), Double Negative (Montreal), Nanolab (Victoria). 

- Two Points of Failure (Michael Moshe Dahan, USA, 2013, 13 min)
An image of Jean-Luc Godard holding a new 35mm prototype camera is allowed to dissolve in a chemical solution of household bleach. A reflection on technology and obsolescence.
- Push, Pull, Recover (Terra Jean Long, Cuba, Canada, 2014, 4 min)
Animated meditation on motion through stillness with breath. Shot in single frames on 16mm and hand painted.
- Red Mill (Rode Molen) (Esther Urlus, Netherlands, 2013, 6 min)
A dazzling study into printing techniques using double exposures with both additive and subtractive colour mixing. Inspired by Piet Mondrian’s series of windmill paintings.
- Konrad & Kurfurst (Esther Urlus, Netherlands, 2013, 7 min)
Using home-brewed film emulsion as the material support, Urlus evokes the story of Konrad and his horse Kurfurst during the 1939 Berlin Olympic Games.
- Attraction (Martha Jurksaitis, UK/France, 2014, 11 min)
Images from various fairground scenes function as a metaphor for the filmmaker’s own attraction to analogue processes. Sound created from a leather skirt, 8mm, and 16mm projectors, and an old steel piano.
- Seoul Electric (Richard Tuohy, Australia/France, South Korea, 2012, 7 min)
The sprawl of electricity wires offers perfect material for a play of repetition and variation. Filmed in black and white and colourized during processing using coloured torch light.
- De Luce 2: Architectura (Janis Crystal Lipzin, USA, 2013, 9 min)
The second instalment in the artist’s exploration of light and photochemistry. Shot on Super 8mm film against 11 different architectural backdrops and then painstakingly processed.
- Living Fossil (Sean Hanley, USA, 2014, 2 min)
Springtime along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, thousands of horseshoe crabs spawn on beaches under the glow of the full moon. A brief glimpse into a 450-million-year-old ritual.
- Lunar Almanac (Malena Szlam, Canada, 2013, 4 min)
Moons in a journey through magnetic spheres, influencing subtle energies on Earth. A silent film with a hypnotic intensity.
- Hold Me (Sook Hyun Kim & Hye Jeong Cho, South Korea, 2013, 8 min)
In an empty warehouse the expressive movements of a dancer tell an emotional story. Attention shifts between the image and the filmstrip - from one physicality to another.
- Picture Particles (Thorsten Fleisch, Germany, 2014, 5 min)
A spectacular analogue-digital transformation that takes us from the minutely observed material properties of film to the crisp clarity of computer generated images.

Black Box Shorts 3: Languages of Intimacy
28 June 15:45h

Four striking articulations of human exchange and physical intimacy.
This programme of films by female artists presents different approaches to the theme of human interaction and the notion of 'family', each framed through a specific use of space. A story about a community slang school that hovers between documentary and fiction, scenes from Now, Voyager reenacted by a series of mothers and daughters, domestic moments against the backdrop of a northern Norwegian town, and a child’s exploration of the natural world. 

- The Simili- School (L'École de Simili-) (Marlies Poeschl, Austria, France, 2014, 29 min)
Hovering between documentary and fiction, this film follows the activities of a group of young middle class drifters who decide to set up a slang school in the suburbs of Paris. The quest to master the language of the street turns into a quest for identity through physical exchange and intimacy. Of different origins and backgrounds, the group becomes a microcosm of contemporary society - dislocated, alienated, and desperately searching for meaning through a relationship with the Other.
- Alligator Tears (Theresa Schwartzman, USA, 2013, 23 min)
Three pairs of mothers and daughters reenact scenes from the classic Bette Davis Hollywood melodrama Now, Voyager, intercut with material from the original film. The result is a compelling study of familial bonds and the performative nature of intimacy. As lines are forgotten and roles break down it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the real from the theatrical.
- Utskor: Either/Or (Laida Lertxundi, Norway/Spain, USA, 2013, 8 min)
Filmed in the town of Utskor in the northern region of Norway, Lertxundi’s characteristically sparse study of human interactions with landscape takes the form of beautifully observed domestic rituals captured during the midnight sun. Fragments of sound and music, voices and text, weave a subtle narrative into these suspended moments.
- Strawberries in the Summertime (Jennifer Reeves, Canada/USA, 2013, 16 min)
A small child takes us on a journey of discovery of all things large and small on and around a farm, reminding us of Stan Brakhage - the master of experimental film - and his concept of the “untutored eye”. The sensuous nature of innocent vision is expressed here through richly textured film images, hand-processed, solarized, and oscillating between negative and positive. Layers of intimacy and exchange develop between the child and his (filming) mother, the filmmaker and the viewer, and the child and the viewer.

Black Box Shorts 4: Sonic Spaces
28 June, 17:50h

Immersive acoustic environments poised between between ear and eye.
A diverse collection of films that asks us to consider the role of sound in the making and interpretation of images. How do the sounds we hear affect the way we perceive, and vice-versa? Featuring films by Deborah Stratman, Paul Clipson, Siegfried Fruhauf, Billy Roisz and Peter Snowdon. Ease yourself into Black Box Live with these gradually intensifying soundscapes.

- Jacumba Song (Baba Hillman, USA, 2013, 3 min)
A playful and colourful exploration of landscape and performative languages, shot in the Anza Borrego desert on Kodachrome and Ektachrome Super 8mm film.
- Creme 21 (Eve Heller, Austria, USA, 2013, 10 min)
This cut-up collage uses old educational and scientific films to create a tapestry of sound and image fragments exploring the perception of time.
- We Are Going to Record (Peter Snowdon & Juan Javier Rivera Andía, Belgium, 2013, 11 min)
A recording session of local songs and music in a remote part of Peru. Footage shot by an ethnographer is edited to draw out the hesitant spaces before and between.
- Hacked Circuit (Deborah Stratman, USA, 2014, 15 min)
A single Steadicam shot takes us through a foley studio during a re-recording of sound effects for Coppola’s The Conversation.
- darkroom (Billy Roisz, Austria, 2014, 13 min)
Several interior spaces are illuminated and sculpted through light projections and sonic accumulations. Isolated details emerge from a sea of darkness.
- Exterior Extended (Siegfried A Fruhauf, Austria, 2013, 9 min)
Thirty-six individual photographic images of an abandoned house are layered on 35mm film. The rhythmic, minimalist soundtrack enhances the play of spatial perception.
- With Pluses and Minuses (Mike Stoltz, USA, 2013, 5 min)
Composed entirely of single-frames varying in length and focus, this study of a “privacy wall” is a psychedelic frenzy of shapes, light, movement, and sound.
- Photooxidation (Pablo Mazzolo, Argentina, 2013, 13 min)
A film about the generative force of light as “photo-excitation”. Layers of sound and image intensify to create an exhilarating and embodied crescendo.
- Void Redux (Paul Clipson, USA, Germany, Switzerland, 2013, 7 min)
A nervous portrait of a Zagreb train station filmed from the tracks. The imminent impact leads to seeing stars. Super 8mm film with music by Barn Owl.

Venue: 

Edinburgh Filmhouse - Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Dates: 

Repeats every day 2 times.
Friday, June 27, 2014 (All day)
Saturday, June 28, 2014 (All day)

Category: 

Dates: 

Friday, June 27, 2014 (All day)
Saturday, June 28, 2014 (All day)
  • 88 Lothian Road
    EH3 9BZ   Edinburgh
    United Kingdom
    55° 56' 47.3712" N, 3° 12' 21.7764" W